Challenges and progress toward a silicon-based multi-microring optical network-on-chip

This paper presents an integrable optical network-on-chip based on multiple microrings, named multimicroring (MMR). The network consists of a central resonating microring with local microrings connected to the input/output ports. Multiple parallel communications can be supported through wavelength division multiplexing by properly tuning local microrings. The paper reports progress towards the realization and control of the MMR network-on-chip using a silicon-based CMOS compatible platform. Strained silicon is selected and demonstrated to be a valid material for realizing integrated devices suitable for packet switching. Then a mathematical model based on the transfer matrix method is used to assess the MMR physical performance, showing that the network is robust to crosstalk. Finally a novel scheduling framework is proposed for arbitrating the packet transmissions. Simulation results of the network performance indicate that adding tunability to the transmitters allows full exploitation of WDM multiplexing, leading to a significant reduction of the packet latency.